Building sites

It is always interesting to see Indian building sites and to compare them to Swiss standards. The differences couldn't be bigger!

It starts with the number of employed laborers: for a huge building like the newly built Bühler application lab at least 100 to 200 workers were involved every day. The grade of mechanization is generally very low; whenever something can be done by hand, it will be done by hand. Machines like excavators or cranes seem to be more expensive than employing some more workforce. People dig big holes or foundation trenches by hand, women haul building material into the 5th floor on their head or back, trestles - which normally are wooden constructions - are built in highly dangerous maneuvers etc.

A cleaning equip, which tries to get master of produced waste and dust, is always part of a building site. At this point the Indian broom has to be mentioned. I have never seen such an unpractical tool: it basically consists of the front part of a broom we are all used to. Now imagine all these poor women bending down to whip the floor...

Unfortunately the dust is normally rather moved to some other place instead of removing it. Thus, you can be sure that some hours later the wind will do its work and the same dust will cover the whole place again.

Even for building a normal house, at least a whole family is employed. Next to the Guesthouse a house is built and the builder family is living directly at the building site in a small and improvised hut. They don't have access to neither sanitary facilities nor drinking water. Witnessing these huge economical differences make me thoughtful and I would have never expected that wealthy and poor people live so near together.

Paint-jobs are another aspect of building worth mentioning: I have the feeling that the quantity of paint is the essential factor and wins over quality. Instead of a proper surface-treatment before painting, the laborers just try to fill all the cracks and gaps with paint; they don't even hesitate to paint wet walls. Covering surfaces, which should not be painted, is not done either; instead people will try to remove excess paint and splatters with strong solvents. You can imagine the result yourself!

The following pictures cannot show the whole story:

The house which is built next to the Guesthouse

Laborers must be tough guys to trust these a wooden construction. At least you can read the predominant wind direction from this trestle ;-).

Happy Birthday Buhler 2

In the meanwhile I got hold off some official photos which were taken on the festive event on October 27. A small selection can be found here.

Chairman Urs Bühler, Group Manager Stefan Scheiber and CEO Calvin Grieder are visiting the analytical lab -what a honour :-).

Happy Birthday Buhler

"From the local iron foundry to the global corporation: the unifying thread of success

When Adolf Bühler set up an iron foundry in Uzwil in 1860 with two employees, he is unlikely to have imagined in his wildest dreams that his venture would ultimately produce a global corporation with 7500 employees in more than 140 countries who generate annual revenue of about 1.8 billion Swiss francs. But looking back on the numerous development steps over the past 150 years, it is fairly easy to identify a unifying thread running through the entire history of Buhler." (excerpt from www.buhlergroup.com)

Besides a huge festive event in Uzwil on February 12, the anniversary is celebrated in all offices around the world. More than three weeks back it was Bühler Bangalore's turn: A newly built application lab was inaugurated and South Indian customers were invited for a gala dinner. The event was attended by a high-ranking delegation consisting of Chairman Urs Bühler, CEO Calvin Grieder and Group Manager Stefan Scheiber.

the newly built Bühler Bangalore application lab

Our new analytical lab was part of the on-site inspections too and hence I had the pleasure to shortly talk to Bühler's top management and to several customers. As some of the guests wanted to see the lab after diner, my colleague Vadivelan and I stayed at the party while most of the other employees were not allowed to attend the festivities. We enjoyed an excellent meal, good drinks and nice traditional dance shows; late-night we were driven home in a cab. It was a nice and entertaining evening, only clouded by heavy rain which turned the terrain of the factory premises into mud and destroyed some displays.

Indian food

I have often been asked how Indian food is like. The answer is a short one: delicious! Sure, there are things which are not advisable for European stomaches and there is also food (such as cheese, dark bread or chocolate) I definitely miss. But Indian food culture is extremely rich and has a huge variety which makes up for all.

It would be far too ambitious to give you an overview of Indian cuisine (which I don't have neither) or to tell you about all the different sorts of restaurants. This would go beyond the scope of this blog. Instead, let's have a look at a simple meal which is served in a cheap restaurant: it normally consists of rice, Indian bread (called chapathi or roti), at least two different sauces, a soupy lentil preparation (dhal), milk or yogurt based sauce, some coconut chutney and a sweet. Such meals are often served on a banana leaf and are consumed with fingers and luckily also with a spoon. And the best thing of it: the whole meal will cost around 2 or 3 Swiss Francs. 

Meals at the Bühler canteen - which are complimentary - are simple but delicious and I always enjoy the short lunch breaks. Instead of a banana leaf, big stainless steel tablets are used and the atmosphere can naturally not be compared to restaurants. One of the only points I have not yet accustomed to is the South Indian breakfast which is served in the canteen. It consists for example of (too spicy) rice or semolina mashes, steamed rice cakes (iddlies), fried rice pan cakes with spicy potatoes (dosas), soups with lots of chilli, a sweet coffee etc. That is the reason why I normally take some European style breakfast at home and cut back on breakfast in the office.

So far I was very lucky not to face any severe stomach problems. Apart from a burning stomach after spicy (but  tasty) dishes I am just fine and my digestive system copes well with the situation; I hope this will go on like that. Drinking tap water or using it for brushing the teeth is strictly taboo but fortunately there is a device installed in the guesthouse which incorporates a water filter and UV treatment.

As stated above there are some sorts of food which I miss, e.g. a good piece of meat from time to time. The latter is hard to find or extremely expensive and having seen butcher shops around the town I can understand that meat quality is very poor and that most Indian dishes are vegetarian (abbreviated as "veg") :-).

You don't have to be a food scientist to judge the microbial quality of the meat which was shelved at about 30 °C...

And you don't have to be a animal rights activist or member of "Vier Pfoten" to despise this sort of animal housing. These small cages can be found everywhere in the town and unfortunately mostly held double the quantity of poultry.

When I am fed up with Indian dishes or need some change from rice, there are fortunately a handful of alternatives: cooking own dishes at the guesthouse, fast food at places such as KFC or McDonald's, Arabian restaurants serving so called Kababs, well known pizzerias such as Domino's etc.

Eastwood apartments

So far I have only talked about the district where I am living in and you have not seen any pictures. I would like to make up for that at this point.

view from my balcony

guesthouse, outside view

Eastwood "main road"

The district is called "Eastwood apartments"; its layout is very simple and you simply cannot get lost in there because the whole place is tiny. This has one drawback: Whenever I go out for jogging, I am bored after some 15 minutes and stop it. Unfortunately jogging alongside the main road is far too dangerous (things commonly referred to as sidewalk simply don't exist) and the traffic, dust and exhausts definitely steal the joy.

At this point I add two more pictures of the guesthouse itself:

 guesthouse, inside view

Hibiscus in the garden

Weekend trip to Srirangapatnam and Mysore

As mentioned in a previous post, I made a two-day trip to western Karnataka. It was the first time for me riding on trains. My first destination was Srirangapatnam: this village is an important Hindu pilgrimage and called after its tenth-century Sriranganathaswamy Vishnu temple. It is also famous for Haider Ali and son Tipu Sultan who desired to rid India of the hated British invaders. As the touristic sights in Srirangapatnam are quite spread, I accepted a rickshaw-driver's offer to show me around the town. He called himself "guide"; apart from some fragments in English he couldn't explain anything though. Still it was certainly not the worst option to get from on sight to the next.

After a refreshment consisting of ice cream and coconut milk I boarded a bus to get to nearby Mysore, one of the most important and appealing stops in Karnataka. It is well known for sandalwood, for strolling around, seeing the markets and especially for the famous Maharaja's Palace. The latter is magnificently illuminated on Sunday nights by some 100'000 light bulbs - what a spectacle! Before leaving Mysore by train on Monday afternoon I also drove to Chamundi Hill. This hill station features an impressive temple which is a well known center of pilgrimage. It was very interesting to observe the pilgrims worshipping and performing rites such as the smashing of coconuts. Seeing thousands of pilgrims, I just imagined how our churches would look like if they were so well frequented.

Before presenting you the photographs I would like to give you a summary with the most important findings of my trip:

Indian railway system: I would have never imagined that a railway "system" could be so complex. There are eight different classes as well as unreserved and reserved tickets. In my case the assistant at the counter recommended reserving a seat in the simple and dirt cheap "sleeper class". On Sunday in the train, I had to learn that "reserved" doesn't exactly has the same meaning as in Europe: Lots of people with unreserved tickets were sitting in the coach and finally I shared my sleeping berth of 0.5 x 2 m - which would have been mine only - with five Indians. The comparison with cattle-transportation in Switzerland is not over-exaggerated... Arriving at the destination and getting out of the coach was a great release. And please: Don't complain about delays of SBB trains anymore! The reservation of trains is also a difficult matter: It took me around one hour to do the reservation for a train from Mumbai to Goa which I plan to take with my brother at the end of the month. And this was only possible because two Spanish girls I got to know offered me their token (similar to Swiss post office system); otherwise it would have taken at least two hours.

Not only the trains are totally overcrowded: In a restaurant, which is well frequented by Mysore locals, it took me about 45 min to get a seat!

Another comment about the touristic facilities: hotels for 400 Indian Rupees (about 9 CHF) are on the borderline concerning hygienic standards. For one night this was ok but for a longer stay I will pay some Rupees more in future.

After two days of traveling on my own I definitely know how to do Indian small talk: A lot of Indian, mostly youngsters, asked for my name, nationality, job, place where I stay etc. Some even asked me to pose on a photograph together with them. This can be funny in the beginning and it is a good possibility to get to know people. After being interrogated about twenty times it definitely gets on the nerves though.

Some of my favorite photographs are shown below. Hopefully these will incite you to have a look at the more comprehensive selection including captions under this link. Enjoy the pictures!